Peter Blanks, Vice President, Technology, Asurion, provides insight on several key industry trends for Parks Associates’ 20^th-annual CONNECTIONS Conference, which will be held May 24-26 in San Francisco:

How is your company engaging consumers through new technology solutions?

Asurion is revolutionizing traditional tech support with our new Soluto tech assistance. Soluto provides 24/7 live, personalized U.S.-based assistance to help people learn, grow and do more with their connected technology.

The Soluto experience makes it easy for customers to get more from the technology they purchase, and reduces the amount of time they spend dealing with the issues and nuisances that can occur with their connected devices every day. Whether consumers are accessing multiple email accounts from a smart watch, transferring photos and contacts to a new mobile phone, or connecting a smart thermostat to a tablet, our Soluto service helps them get the most from their connected devices and apps, regardless of the operating system and brand.

What is the biggest change you have seen in the past year in the connected home and entertainment industries?

The proliferation of voice activated connected devices is the most interesting connected home feature that will change how customers interact with their home environment. These products, such as the Amazon Echo, leverage technology to allow consumers to interact with the home environment on a human level.

What do you think is the biggest driver for the connected consumer market?

With connected devices, consumers are seeking convenient, intuitive solutions to help make their lives easier; from helping to keep their homes and family safe with smart home security systems, to helping to save money and manage finances and help improving their personal health via education and alerts.

With this in mind, Asurion has created a culture embodied by our customer experience principles that are used by every Asurion team member to ensure that we deliver a high quality experience that helps customers get the most from their connected lives.

What is the greatest challenge for the connected home industry in the next year?

The wide proliferation of OEM products and protocols with multiple, competing standards is unprecedented within the industry. This is compounded by the fact that no one OEM is providing a holistic suite of products for the connected home environment, and only a few are thinking about how to make their products work with those made by their competitors. This has led to slow adoption by consumers. And, for those consumers who are early adopters, it has forced them to mix and match products that don’t necessarily work seamlessly with one another.

This fragmentation is leading to increasing complexity and confusion for consumers in how to set up and keep their connected home environment running smoothly and effortlessly. This complexity is what makes our Soluto service so important. With Soluto, Asurion is helping shoppers to demystify emerging connected home products, and get the most enjoyment out of these products regardless of brand or platform. Our Soluto service not only helps break down the barriers to purchase, it also helps improve customer loyalty.

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Blanks will speak on the session “Support Strategies to Integrate Smart Devices in the IoT” on Thursday, May 26 at 10:30 a.m. Other speakers on the panel include iQor, Centercode, and OnProcess Technology.

For more information on CONNECTIONS, visit www.connectionsus.com or register by clicking here.

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